Q1 Crypto Market Recap: 21 Altcoins Doubled in Price in the First Quarter

The first quarter of 2019 has come to a close, marking the best three-month period for the crypto market in over a year.

While Bitcoin (BTC) put in a solid quarter with a respectable 11.7% gain, altcoins appear to be back in season with many coins seeing high double-digit and even triple-digit returns as they begin to recover from the 2018 sell-off.

Of the top-10 gainers, three have relatively small market caps below $25 million, Everex, Numeraire and Ripio. The actual top performer for the quarter was Ravencoin (RVN), although PCHAIN (PAI) holds that spot in the list. This appears to be a mistake caused by two coins using the PAI symbol — the $87 million market cap belongs to Project Pai while PCHAIN has an $8 million market cap, neither token is up 790%.

The top-35 small, mid and large cap gainers in Q1 (Messari)

Interestingly, the top-35 list includes a number of exchange tokens. As we’ve reportednumeroustimes over the course of the quarter, exchange tokens have been the clear winners of 2019 so far.

A total look at the performance of the overall crypto market in Q1, as tracked by the AltDex 100 Index (ALT100), shows that the market has been in a steady uptrend since bottoming in early February.

AltDex 100 Index (AltDex)

The ALT100 has gained 14.2% this quarter, outperforming Bitcoin by roughly 2.5%. The overall crypto market is now worth $148.3 billion, with Bitcoin making up 49.99% of that total.